


Healing

by musesofaninsomniac



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Civil War (Marvel), Civil War Fix-It, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-06-08 01:22:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6833107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesofaninsomniac/pseuds/musesofaninsomniac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He slides the phone into his suit pocket and gets to work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He burns the letter almost immediately, holding the lighter to paper until it singes his fingertips, whistling breaths through bared teeth from lungs that still ache and a heart that won’t _fucking_ stop pounding beneath purple and black that form the rim of a shield, because how dare he think it would fix anything, how dare he try to justify _anything_ , _how dare he_ —

He slides the phone into his suit pocket and gets to work.

* * *

 

Tony starts with the easy ones. A little fast talk and Barton’s free and clear within the month— _so_ unfortunate there’s no security footage of him breaking out Scarlet Witch, Senator; nope, Vision’s not talking, Prime Minister; really weird that nobody can find video from Germany either, Ambassador, but hey, what can you do without evidence, so sorry, _it’s the law_.

He sends the news to Barton’s wife through his most secure anonymous channels, and brushes through the following media storm with ease. Not many can prove he had a part in it and not many care, really.

It helps that Ross is hunting for bigger fish, and without his support nobody really has the time or the inclination to fight about pardoning a basically retired non-enhanced archer, not with Europe and Nigeria still smoking, not with airports to rebuild and government facilities to upgrade and hospital bills to be paid—all on Tony’s dime, of course. They’re his mistakes, after all (he doesn’t need to listen to the media and the government and the public to know that) and hey, these ones he can fix with the one thing he has plenty of.

“—getting better. Hey, you listening to me? Paging Mr. Stank?”

His eyes snap up with a groan. “Seriously, still? Let it go already.”

“Never, man. Never,” Rhodey grins at him, a quick flash of teeth from where he’s striding around the room. Tony eyes the braces critically, sweeping over the joints and smooth curves of the metal, making sure they can carry his best friend like he’s never been able to himself.

“They’re okay?” he asks. He’s worked on them all this week in lieu of sleep, waiting for the decision on Barton, can still feel the burn on his wrist from where the soldering iron dropped from his grip when he got the news, not in time to heed Friday’s warning because his head was still ringing with the words _thank fuck thank fuck thank fuck_ ; _one down_ , he remembers thinking, _at least I could fix that one_. “I can adjust the supports if it’s too much weight on the hips—”

“Man, keep your eyes off my hips, they’re great,” the colonel says, taking one, then two careful steps forward, his stride a bit more fluid than last week. “Of course, the last pair were great too. And the pair before that.”

Tony waves a dismissive hand. “I can do better, just give me time.”

Rhodey narrows his eyes and locks his jaw—his Stop Being an Idiot, Tony face. “They’re fine as they are; you got enough to do. You have to rebuild Europe—”

“One German airport and a UN center, honeybear, gimme a break—”

“You also have to _sleep occasionally_ , Tones, maybe even eat—”

The buzzing of a phone cuts through, and Tony freezes, can’t breathe before he realizes it’s the wrong pocket and his shoulders come down from around his ears.

“Sorry, have to take this,” he flashes a patented Stark grin at Rhodey, and moves to the door. “You alright here?”

“Fine,” the colonel nods, grasping the iron bar behind him so he can point a finger at Tony. “This conversation isn’t over, though. I’m gonna make you take care of yourself.”

“Keep dreaming, honeybear,” he shoots back, and steps out the door, phone already to his ear. “What?”

“Oh good, you’re still an asshole,” comes the unmistakable voice of one Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye. “You had me worried for a minute after you had me pardoned for international treason or whatever so I could go home to my damn wife.”

Tony blinks twice and makes a little choking noise. “How the—what…”

“You gave your number to Laura last year in case of emergencies, dick,” Barton says. “And I know you’re the one who got me the pardon because nobody else would have tried.”

There’s a lump in his throat that Tony’s refusing to analyze. “You call just to tell me things I already know, Birdbrain?”

“Actually I called to apologize,” Barton fires back, without missing a beat, and, **_what_**?

“…Damn,” says Barton, after a minute, and it sounds like he’s struggling not to laugh, _the asshole_ , “The great Tony Stark speechless. Nobody’s ever gonna believe me.” Another pause, and then, “Look, man, what I said to you the last time we saw each other? That was out of line. It was my choice to follow Cap, I knew there would be risks, and it wasn’t fair to dump all the blame on you. I mean, you had just gotten me locked in an inescapable floating prison at the time, so—”

“You and Wanda threw like eleven cars at my head,” Tony says, but the lump is back in this throat and there’s no heat to it.

Clint snorts. “Call it even?” he suggests, and Tony realizes he’s smiling.

“Yeah, Legolas,” he says. “Works for me.”

“Cool. And, hey,” Clint’s tone is abruptly serious. “Laura got a copy of the Accords—don’t know how, woman is crafty—and I’m reading them over. Don’t know if I’m gonna sign them, but even if I don’t? You need me, I’m there, man.”

Tony opens his mouth, goes to push back his hair with fingers that are shaking, and tries again.

“That goes for me too,” he manages to rasp, hand pressed over old scars, fingers tap, tap, tapping in old rhythms, “Me too.”

“Cool. Gotta run, man. Kids wanna go to the beach,” Clint says. “Take care of yourself, ass.”

“Love to the kids, dick,” Tony shoots back, automatic.

When he hangs up, he takes a breath, a little fuller, a little deeper than he has in weeks, tries to steady the straggling beat of his heart, still going under the blue and deep green imprint of a shield.

He braces himself against the weight of the phone in his pocket, and gets back to work.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trust builds slowly, Tony’s coming to find, but it builds.

He wakes up shouting in the night, when he tries to sleep, trembling limbs heaving him out of an empty bed lined with sweat-soaked sheets.

He has Friday lower the temperature to near-Artic levels to combat the sandpaper dryness of his throat, the prickling of his skin that tells him he’s burning alive in molten sand and desert heart, has the lights turned up as high as they go to whiteout alien constellations.

He crawls to his workbench to cover his hands in grease and motor oil so he can tell it’s not the thick blood of the Sokovian dead (so many, _somanysomany_ ), has Friday blast Black Sabbath and ACDC to drown out a metallic voice calling him creator, to cover the sightless blue eyes and the call of a silent mouth crying _you should have saved us_ , to drown out the words damning the merchant of death, and builds.

He hasn’t fully figured out how to block out that roar of fury, the crunch of the arc reactor and that _slam_ of metal that reverberated down through his chest, cracked bone and stalled his heart two beats, that blow that sends him reeling up out of sleep every day, hours before the dawn, gasping with hands already raised for a defense that came too late.

He thinks this, this one can’t be pushed back like the others, can’t be drowned out, not in any way he knows, and he has too much to do to come up with any way he doesn’t.

He pushes himself from his workbench at the first sight of dawn every day, heart still beating on under its damning band of blue and green, curls his fingers around the phone, and goes on to work.

* * *

 

Freeing Lang is almost literally the work of a moment—he sends the documents outlining the man’s situation to legal, where Nathan, the head of his team, takes one look at them, snorts, and tells Tony they’ll have him reunited with his daughter in two weeks.

Sachiko, the head of his PR department mutters “piece of cake, Tony,” and shoos him out with a distracted wave, once presented with the adorable person of Cassie Lang—who in Tony’s opinion is way more terrifying than any nine (?) year old has a right to be. He approves, obviously.

It actually takes three and half weeks (which both Nathan and Sachiko assure him is due only to government backlog), and he’s sitting in the back of his car heading home from a hospital fundraiser, fiddling absently with a Starkpad with one hand and rubbing the blue and green rim on his chest with the other, when his phone pings, twice in rapid succession, with the texts:

Nathan: _Pathetic, Tony. Didn’t even break a sweat_.

Sachiko: _His kid can cry on cue. Give me a challenge next time._

Tony raises an eyebrow and looks down at the StarkPad across his lap, realizes a moment later what’s he’s designing.

The blueprints for a…focus, loosely, something that can dampen down energy spikes, streamline the flow, keep them from spiraling out, veering off course.

He sends them both a photo of Wanda Maximoff’s face.

He’s playing with the design, discarding different shades of scarlet and bronze, when the double chirp of the texts breaks the silence:

Nathan: _Goddammit, Stark. On it._

Sachiko: _Ffs, why do you hate me. Send me the info._

One week later he’s feeding the design into the fabricators, exhausted and twitchy after a dark night made sleepless by flashes of a yawning alien chasm, the feel of the last of his breath rattling out of his lungs, when there’s another two chirps:

UNKNOWN: _Cassie says I should say thanks, at least, so thanks, Mr. Stark. IOU_.

UNKNOWN: _It’s Ant-Man, btw. Scott Lang_.

Tony grins, saves the number under _Thumbelina_ , and takes his first deep breath of the day as one knot of tension under his breastbone eases. He almost chokes on it when there’s one final chirp, and he opens the text sent from his personal assistant:

NotPepper: _Ross knows what you’re planning for SW. Trying to storm the castle_.

“Fuck shit fuck,” Tony mutters, locks the blueprints down safely and sprints for the door, the familiar weight in his left pocket dragging on his steps.

* * *

 

Naturally, that’s when Romanov decides to come back.

Tony walks into his living room two days, 28 jams of the hold button, two thwarted military efforts on Stark Industries, one block of a federal warrant, and approximately 50 cups of coffee after the text to find the Black Widow sitting on the couch with the view of the door, holding a cup of Russian tea while Rhodey eyes her from the chair.

“Honey, I’m home,” she says, dry as always, her hand relaxed around the teacup, but Tony sees the wary eyes, the tight, shoulder-straight hold of her muscles that’s never fully relaxed.

“Rhodey, there’s a spider in our parlor,” Tony says, tony breezy, though he has to fight for it. “I don’t really remember how the story goes but I’m pretty sure that makes us the flies.”

“Speak for yourself,” Rhodey mutters.

“Relax, boys, I’m not here to eat you,” Romanov says lightly, setting down her cup and crossing her legs before looking levelly at Tony. “You can guess why I’m here.”

“Ross?” he says, blithe, sprawling into the couch opposite and trying not to squirm when the collar of his shirt falls open just enough to bear the marks, when her eyes flicker down.

“Ross,” she confirms, still level, still so controlled.

“Ross?” Rhodey echoes, sharp. “What about Ross? What’s happening?”

“Suppose he sent you to try and talk some sense into me?” Tony picks lint off his collar, supremely unconcerned, and flicks open the sunglasses, taps them against his leg.

“He wanted to remind you that you’re a signed member of the Accords, that international relations are delicate right now, and he’s already let you have two out of six wanted fugitives,” Romanov says. “I asked him to give me the privilege in person. Also said I’d try to find a way to deal with our wayward magic problem.”

“Ah, hell, Tony, we’re going after her next?” Rhodey collapses against the chair’s back, grimacing. “This one isn’t gonna be easy, you know that. It’s gonna be tricky.”

“Yeah,” Tony agrees, then nods at Romanov. “But tricky is kind of what she does.”

The Black Widow’s familiar tiny, ‘what happens next is your fault, idiot,’ smile flickers across her face. “I’m pretty good at tricky.”

“Ah, Christ,” Rhodey mutters. “Guess we’re going after the big ones now, huh?”

“You know what they say, honeybear, go big or go home,” Tony hops to his feet, but the twitch of his lips gives away how much the movement costs him. “I’m gonna go make coffee; we’ll need it for brain power.”

“Tony,” the Widow calls, and he stops, half turned, and meets her eyes, serious and calculating. “We’re not okay, are we?”

He considers the question, folds his hands into his pockets, and touches cool, unyielding metal.

“Nope,” he decides, and turns towards the kitchen.

* * *

 

She corners him after a week when he’s hunkered down in his workshop, breathing in deep as he can to wash away the scent of blood and char, and tugs the metal plates out of his hands so she knows he has his full attention.

“I miscalculated,” she says firmly, moving to check him at the door, holding his eyes with hers. “I was on your team, but when I got to the jet I saw that with Bucky—”

Tony actually hisses, scalded, tries to swallow the noise down until the pressure is burning his sternum and ribs with their numerous fractures, until it feels like his bones are shaking apart, and opens his mouth, but she’s faster.

“With _Bucky_ , the way that he was,” Romanov pushes on, but the hands on his shoulders are keeping him steady, now, kneading carefully into muscles gone painfully tight before he jerks away, “Steve couldn’t stop. So I thought, if not him, it would—would have to be us. You.”

Tony’s shaking, hands clenched so tight blood is already trickling from a broken scab on the back of his hand, and he has to wrench his teeth apart, just to start, just to try.

“Did you ever think,” he begins, voice tight and coiled, every syllable forced out over the thickness of the pressure in his chest, “ever think, that maybe, there’s more than one direction to move? Did you ever consider—ever think—” but his throat closes, and he can’t force out the rest and it hangs silent in the space between them: _ever think that I could have helped, if he had just given an inch, trusted me with **anything** , just let me try, let me try_.

He swallows. “If you had just _trusted_ me.”

“Well, that was always the problem with us, wasn’t it?” she asks, eyes cool and level on his. “ _Trust_.”

He flashes back, remembers the hurt in her eyes after Germany, after he (wounded, aching, furious) spat the words _double agent_ , widened the breach. He slumps down next to his workbench, suddenly exhausted.

“Yeah, well, that’s who we are,” he says, instead of _I’m sorry_ , because he’s a Stark and Starks don’t do apologies, but it’s Natasha, and she more than anyone knows how to read between the lines. “We don’t trust easy.”

She sighs. “There weren’t any good choices there,” she says, instead of _I read the terrain, did what I thought was right_ , because it’s Natasha and she knows this is a language they share, “You were both my friends, you know.”

A beat of silence, a deliberate weakening of defenses, an offering. _I’m still your friend, Tony_.

And then Tony snorts, on his feet, checking her shoulder as he reaches past her for the blowtorch.

“Jesus, Nat, don’t get all mushy on me now, you know it gives me hives,” Tony flicks on the blowtorch and waves her over. “Now get over here; I need your delicate little hands to hold this steady; I may be a genius but I only have two hands and fuck knows where my clamp is.”

Natasha snorts and rolls her eyes, but presses down the metal. “What’s this thing going to do, anyway?”

He grins and when he tells her, there’s something in her eyes that he’s seen only occasionally and not at all after Germany, fragile but it’s there.

It takes a few days but there’s talk again where there was silence before, and when he takes out the black phone and puts in on the table between them, she listens, and there’s understanding in her eyes before he slips it back into his pocket and flips open the folders filled with Maximoff’s face.

* * *

 

He still can’t sleep, still stumbles out of an empty bed every day hours before the dawn, but the anchor of the phone is a little lighter, and sometimes when he slinks into the workshop there’s a figure already sitting cross-legged on the bench, looking over the newest blueprints with coffee in hand.

Trust builds slowly, Tony’s coming to find, but it builds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Tony's PR and legal people are actually named individuals in the MCU, sorry for making them up. I freely admit ignorance.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s so, so used to the pressure in his chest, the dull press of his mistakes blocking his breath, that it actually takes him a minute to realize the sharp, clean wash of feeling rushing through him is anger.

As the bruises on his chest fade, his nights get a fraction better, then worse, then much, much worse.

When he jolts awake from the same nightmare (the feeling of sinking through an alien sky like it’s dark, murky water, scarred metal pushing him down, down into the void while his chest cracks open, his heart, black with so much blood it falls like rain over a burning Earth, open and vulnerable to the grip of too many grasping fingers) for the third night in a row, he throws himself out of bed with a harsh growl. 

Then he firmly shuts his bedroom door and staggers down to his workshop, declaring grandly to Friday that sleep is for the weak before he creates an energy drink packed with enough stimulant that his world goes bright at the edges, the whine of his own heartbeat a constant hum in his ears.

He doesn’t sleep anymore, not if can’t be avoided, but (as he knew they would be) the nightmares are still there, and the weight of the phone in his left pocket grows so heavy he sways with it when he pushes himself upright, trying to step forward.

* * *

 

Ross predictably throws what is, in Tony’s opinion, a goddamn epic temper tantrum.

So does most of the federal government, actually, and several UN ambassadors, the Nigerians at the fore, come straight out howling for his blood—unlike Clint and Lang, Ross immediately made sure Tony’s name is out and connected with the frenzy that ensues with the connection of the words _Scarlet Witch_ and _free_ , once he knows Tony’s certainly going through with the effort.

“It’s an outrage. She’s an unhinged criminal; I mean, she’s killed dozens of people already, for God’s sake,” Ross says to FOX News, jaw clenched and arms folded in full military dress, two days after the information leaks. “And who knows what else she can do? What else she will do, left unchecked? Hell with what Stark is saying, someone like that doesn’t get off the hook just because the precious _Captain America_ —another criminal, in case you forgot—made her an Avenger.”

“It is a travesty not only to the Nigerian people, but to all of human life, that Mr. Stark is suggesting that woman be fully pardoned for her actions,” the Nigerian ambassador tells CNN one week later, eyes stony and fierce in equal measure, shoulders drawn back and chin raised. “Those of us who thought Mr. Stark might have at last learned the meaning of responsibility can only shake their heads.”

As Ross and the government re-release video of Wanda in Nigeria, the smoke and blood and screams; as they send out unseen photos of her with Hydra, standing under a clear black logo, hands entwined with a smirking silver-haired boy; as leaked videos of her with Ultron, red-eyed with sparks flying from whirling hands appear on YouTube near daily, Tony can only grit his teeth, try and quell the staggering heartbeat in his still-aching chest (the bruises are a faint yellow, now, but the bones beneath are still latticed with small breaks, a spider web of fissures under Tony’s skin), and move on, while Natasha slips in and out of the Avengers facility, while Rhodey makes calls, and the garbage fills with shredded paper and broken flash drives.

As groups of protesters fill the space beneath Stark Tower and outside of the Avengers facility with raised picket signs and raised voices, as newspapers and blogs fill with heated opinion columns, headed with pithy headlines about “The Scarlet Witch Trials” and “that pesky Scarlet A;” as talk shows are filled with politicians and celebrities and military personnel who rail against the public menace that has to be caught now, _now now now_ , Tony can only flash a megawatt grin to hide bared teeth and hit back, because this tune he’s played from the _cradle_ , baby, and he knows what strings to pull.

And slowly, gradually, bit by bit, he sees it—a change in the tides. Sachiko counters each picture of Wanda in Nigeria or with Ultron or Hydra with one of her fighting in Sokovia, or shielding wounded toddlers, or smiling, exhausted but proud, at Clint or Natasha or Rhodey after a successful Avengers mission. Youtube fills with videos of Wanda _fighting_ Ultron; now, newspaper and blog posts start with pictures of her face after Nigeria, hands covering her mouth, eyes wide and horrified, and talk shows have guests, tentative at first, who talk about the need for rehabilitation, gratitude, forgiveness.

Two slow months of this, before the governments begins to stir with uncertainty, the military and the lawyers aren’t so quick to oppose. The conversation shifts, as Sachiko replaces every call of _psychopath_ , _Hydra freak_ , _murderer_ , with _orphan_ , _victim_ , **_child_**.

Another two months, before they agree to anything resembling a discussion. The promise of _maybe_ is sour, and Ross sets the date for the subcommittee meeting through bared teeth, but Tony just smiles at him, a beaming Stark grin beneath the sunglasses hiding the black circles under his eyes, because even Tony might have had trouble changing this from a _no_ , but give him a _maybe_?

Ross knows as well as he does, that with a _maybe_ , shit. He can work miracles.

* * *

 

Days later, he jerks up from his workbench, rubbing the imprint of a wrench on his cheek as he gasps from the memory of falling, hands raised, and there’s a slim figure in the open doorway, eyes still red.

“Jesus _fuck_ ,” he forces out, pressing one hand to his pulse quell his thundering heart like some delicate fucking southern belle, “Give me a little warning next time, witchy, I have a heart condition.”

“I wanted this conversation to be private,” the Scarlet Witch says, flat, stepping forward and sinking into a chair as Tony slumps back against the bench.

“We can’t have any kind of conversation if I die from a heart attack,” he mutters, but then feels the phone in his pocket, heavy and burning, and lets it go.

He watches her lean her head against the chair, and there’s a familiar squeeze of pressure in his chest when he notes the pallor of her face, the press of her collarbones against too-thin flesh. “What exactly did you want to chitchat about, privately, that was so urgent you had to fly over from Wa—” he checks himself, carefully, “wherever the fuck you were, and break into my house at four in the goddamn morning?”

She doesn’t try for subtlety, simply watches him out of cool eyes. “I want you to stop,” she says. “Whatever it is you are doing, I want you to stop.”

Tony’s eyes narrow. “Whatever it is I’m doing? I’m trying to rework your fugitive status, _obviously_. I didn’t think that needed to be spelled out.”

It’s her turn to narrow her eyes, in an expression so familiar throughout his life that he has to resist gritting his teeth—it was a face that said, _You’re Tony Stark, so you obviously have an ulterior motive, and I resent it_.

“Last time you tried to help me, you locked me away,” she says, decisively calm, folding her arms across her torso. “I am not eager to accept that kind of help again.”

“So, what, you’d rather stay on the run, hiding from the big bad world? Afraid to show your face in case the government sees you, or worse, people do, and you have to hurt them to keep them from hurting you?” he asks, blunt, and knows he’s right with a sick twist of his stomach when she flinches, before the red flashes in her eyes. “That’s all I was trying to avoid by keeping you here; I fucking _grew up_ in the public eye, you know. I _know_ how mob mentality works.”

“Funny, how you never thought to share that explanation with me,” she shoots back, and now he sees it, where she’s holding it together, the frayed edges of her composure, but a moment later and she’s looking down with a sigh. “I thought it was safer too, for a while,” she admits, glancing up from her knees “But then Clint came, and I—it was too much like a cage than a safety net.”

She fixes him in place with that cool gaze. “Do you understand?”

He opens his mouth to say _something_ to that (because he understands but he doesn’t agree and it makes Tony grit his teeth, the _knowledge_ in her eyes, because he knows she already gets that, is just asking to make a point—safety doesn’t mean control, Stark—only he doesn’t think it’s control if you’re just trying to stop from free-falling) but as he shifts the phone presses against his leg, and the words stop before they can get to his mouth.

“Whatever,” he says, trying to ignore that he’s the one coming off like a teenage girl in this conversation, and flips a hand up, dismissive, ever the showman. “That’s not what you came here to discuss, Sabrina, so get to the point. What, you don’t want to give up the fugitive life?”

“I don’t want to live in fear,” she tells him, a stubborn jut to her chin, “I don’t want to sign the Accords. I don’t want to live under your idea of justice.”

He’s so, so used to the pressure in his chest, the dull press of his mistakes blocking his breath, that it actually takes him a minute to realize the sharp, clean wash of feeling rushing through him is _anger_.

“My idea of justice?” he repeats, blankly, and then, stronger, “ _My idea of justice_? Are you fucking—first of all, sweetheart, _I_ didn’t come up with the Accords,” he snaps, knuckles white where he’s still gripping the bench, spine a rigid line. “It came to me the same way it came to you, signed off on by 117 countries, and yeah, I supported it—maybe not all of it, which is why my lawyers are currently having a field day amending the thing—but I supported it, because what is so wrong with accountability?”

He realizes he’s shaking, anger running through him like a live wire, but he can’t stop himself, not now.

“Isn’t that what you _wanted_ , with Ultron? For me to be held _accountable_?” he asks, _demands_ , “So, what, it’s all right for me but _you guys_ , you just get to live outside the law, do whatever the fuck you want just because you’re sure you’re doing _the right thing_ , like I haven’t been trying to? Like I don’t know exactly how dangerous that can be if you’re wrong?”

She’s staring at him, half off the chair eyes wide and surprised like she’s never seen him before, still so young, and everything leaves him in a rush, leaves him limp and trembling and aching, the pressure back in his chest against his broken places.

He wheels away from her, turning back to his bench, looks down blindly at the mess of wire and bronzed metal and scarlet dye strewn in front of him. “Get out,” he says, tired, not lifting his head from the bench. “I have work to do here, and it has nothing to do with you.”

Silence, and when he lifts his head to look at the chair, she’s gone.

* * *

 

He works through the morning, all through the next day and night, until his fingers are so weak they’re fumbling the simplest of tools, skin burning from brushes with the soldering iron and crossed wires, until he gives up and slumps down against the bench, lets his eyes close.

His dreams are strangely disjointed, one breaking into the next, a meld of crimson and bright, winking stars and metal until, all at once, he’s left in darkness.

When he wakes up the edges of the world have righted themselves, and he stands, taking a cautious breath inward, feels the burn of his chest all the way down to where the phone is still nestled in the left pocket of his jeans.

His workshop is so silent that for a moment he thinks _she couldn’t have possibly been_ , that it had been some strange kind of hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation and pain and the lingering thread of nightmares in the back of his mind.

Except when he walks upstairs, she’s sitting at the kitchen table.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he speaks his voice has an ugly lilt to it, a patronizing type of scorn it only gets when he deliberately crosses a line, “I don’t remember you making that kind of distinction when one of my weapons killed your parents.”

Sometimes, when his hands are shaking over his work, when he’s licking his parched lips or rubbing his eyes, aching from the burn of white-hot metal, when he hears the rasp of his breath in a chest that protests his every move—when all he wants to do is curl up and _stop_ , he has Friday run the numbers.

He stands there, and waits until they’re thrown up in bright, electric blue over his head, mingling with half-finished designs:

Gulmira, New York, Malibu, Sokovia.

When he’s swaying with exhaustion, gritting his teeth against the clamoring call of his body for _rest_ , he has Friday bring up the names, the faces, in long, scrolling lists, until he can lock his knees, one hand dropping into his left pocket to touch cool black metal, and work.

When he goes upstairs to see Wanda Maximoff at his kitchen table, he has to blink away dozens of Sokovian faces until he can focus on her eyes.

* * *

 

Tony thinks that he honestly shouldn’t be surprised to see the Scarlet Witch sitting at his breakfast table, calmly but ravenously devouring a bowl of oatmeal, because, really, when do people do what he tells them, but he still stares for almost a minute before he huffs and goes around her to the coffeemaker.

There’s nothing but the click of her spoon against the bowl and the gurgle of the coffeemaker for several long minutes, and he takes a long swallow of coffee before he speaks, his back still to her, “Thought I told you to leave, Tara.”

“I ignored you,” she says, dry, after a careful bite of oatmeal.

“Color me shocked,” Tony mutters, and takes another long swallow of near-scalding coffee before turning. “ _Why_ are you still here, exactly?”

She pauses, and Tony’s shoulders tense at the almost eerie quiet of the facility, with Vision off helping Rhodey with physical therapy and Natasha off doing…Natasha things, he and Friday the only witnesses to the fugitive scraping up the last of her breakfast and eyeing him with bright, speculative eyes.

“We still have things to discuss, I think,” she says, setting down her spoon, soft and careful.

Tony snorts. “Do you? I don’t, and I’m a genius so I’m probably the one who’s right,” he tilts his head as he hears the swish of the automatic doors, a voice calling out his name. “And that’s Rhodey, so unless you want to head on back to the Raft now, scram.”

She narrows her eyes at him but by the time Rhodey enters the kitchen, she’s gone, Tony still blinking red sparks out of his sight and clutching his coffee cup for dear life.

“Hey, man—whoa,” Rhodey stops short, squinting at the empty bowl on the table, Vision coming up smoothly behind to steady him with a careful hand. “Tony, did you actually eat breakfast?” His best friend pokes at the spoon. “Did you… _make_ breakfast?”

“Why the tone of surprise? I am a man of many talents, honeybear,” Tony says haughtily.

“Yeah, but cooking’s never been one of them,” Rhodey’s face scrunches up in suspicion, and Tony employs evasive maneuvers before he can talk again, firing off questions about physical therapy and the current version of the braces the colonel is wearing, until Rhodey smacks at his hands and tells him to back off, and he can safely retreat down to the workshop in peace.

He sets his coffee cup down on the bench, carefully considers the circuitry spread around him as Friday suggests bronze and scarlet patterns, and puts it out of his mind.

* * *

 

He stops being able to do that fairly quickly, because she keeps coming back.

Always when the facility is empty, when it’s just him up to his elbows in wire and grease, and the thing about ignoring someone with mystical abilities that include telekinesis and mental manipulation is that _you fucking can’t_ , so her visits rapidly take on a pattern:

Maximoff appears, Tony jumps and normally throws something, Maximoff freezes or deflects it, and after cajoling, prodding, or goading Tony into it, the two of them…talk. Well, bicker.

In short they argue, _loudly_ , and at length.

* * *

 

About the necessity of the Accords, one week after the visits become a regular thing:

“ _Why_ don’t you understand this?” Maximoff demands, placing her hands flat on the table, thrusting out her jaw, “I don’t agree with the Accords. I don’t want to be under the control of people who just want to lock me away because they’re terrified of what I can do—”

“You wouldn’t be, that’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Tony growls, his own hands curling under the bench’s edge, his own jaw stubbornly locked, “You wouldn’t be shoved under the command of some shadowy medieval government who wants to stone you for your powers or whatever, _it’s the UN_ , they just want to be able to reign us in when we need it—”

“When _you_ think we need it, you mean, because apparently your opinion is the only one we should listen to—”

“Fucking Christ, what do you think I did, went around to over a hundred countries and said, ‘hey, know that super-powered team I’m a part of, wouldn’t it be nice if you could control them? Free Avengers for everyone!’ I’m not the President or an ambassador or a diplomat, _I’m just an engineer_! And they have the right to decide if they want us helping out in their country, by the way—” 

* * *

 

Or about locking half the team in the Raft, two weeks after the first appearance:

“I don’t know what you expected!” Tony shouts, throwing up his arms, “You went in to the fight _knowing_ that you were breaking the law, what did you think would happen, that you’d get off just because you were Avengers?”

“Do not start with your ‘ _we’re not above the law_ ’ speech, Stark,” Maximoff hisses, swinging around to glare it with a toss of her hair, “I expected consequences, but they put me in a straitjacket and a collar. They shocked me every time it even looked like I was thinking of using my powers.”

“I didn’t think—”

“Exactly! How can you stand for the Accords, when people like Ross are going to use them against people like me, to do things like _that_ , whenever they can?”

“I’m trying to stop people like Ross from being able to do anything like that, ever again.”

“That doesn’t erase what’s already happened, Stark—”

“I know, okay? _I know_.”

* * *

 

Three weeks, over locking Wanda inside the Avengers facility:

“We’ve been over this already, witchy. All I did was anticipate public reaction. I wasn’t trying to take away your freedom, or anything—”

“And as I’ve told you, Stark, a cage is still a cage, no matter how well-meaning,” Wanda shoots back, her eyes flashing red for just an instant, “Did you honestly think that was the best way to handle the situation?”

“I made a judgement call—”

“Of course, because we should always trust _your_ judgment—”

He stabs a finger at her. “You know what, no, _no you shouldn’t_ , which is exactly why we need oversight—”

“Not from people who just want to use us—”

* * *

 

It goes on in the same pattern, until, four weeks after the night she first slipped into his workshop, Tony comes back from the first subcommittee to talk about her fugitive status—a committee that spent the day arguing in exhausting circles, until they finally had to set a date for a second meeting, and slumps against his workbench nearly immediately after the doors close, shutting his eyes and letting his head hang with a sigh.

“I told you it would not work.” Maximoff’s voice floats over his shoulder, and Tony raises his head to see her perched on the chair, arms folded across her chest.

He blinks at her, and then makes himself push up from the table, slips his hands into his pockets and takes in a slow, labored breath as his fingers curl around the black phone. “They asked for another meeting,” he says, light, casual, and makes himself breath at a steady pace, ignoring the burn of his chest, “It could still work.”

“No.” Maximoff shakes her head, a sardonic smile curling on her mouth, and the ache in his chest doubles along with the pounding of his struggling heartbeat at how weary she looks, too young to be so worn. “They’re never going to give me freedom. They’re terrified of me.”

“That’s not true,” he protests, hollowly, because the problem is that _it is_ , that the people lining the room had looked at pictures of this slender, tired girl and seen a weapon, seen someone who could read their thoughts, manipulate poison gas, capture the force of a bomb, and worse, seen someone who couldn’t control herself enough to be left alone.

He shakes his head, lifting a shoulder, and tries to make his hand lift from the black phone as he attempts a smile. His fingers don’t move, and his voice is raspy from the burn of his chest as he says, “This isn’t the last judgement; I still have some tricks up my sleeve—”

“ _No_ ,” Maximoff leaps up from her seat, shaking her head as she walks toward him. “What they’ll offer me isn’t freedom. You can’t honestly tell me anyone there was fine with me just—on my own, free to do as I please.”

“They wanted restrictions. They-they wanted to put a tracking anklet on you” Tony admits, nearly chokes on the words, the curl of his fingers on the phone becoming a death grip, but he owes her the truth at least, because he knows her coming is trying, and he has to make her _understand_ , “Also something that could…stop you, if you got out of control. I suggested a guardian, someone who would stay with you 24/7—” he tries to add, hastily, because the Scarlet Witch’s eyes had gone crimson at the word stop, two containers of solvent behind her exploding with silent force.

She cuts him off with a growled exclamation—Tony did not doubt it was a curse—and her hands start shaking before she balls them into fists, the silver glitter of her rings catching the light.

“This is the problem, do you not understand?” she demands, eyes flashing, “They are terrified of me, and I won’t be safe, you saw it on the Raft already. They’ll do unspeakable things to me, and call it reasonable, all in the name of protection. I don’t need that kind of watching, Stark. Not when I can protect myself just fine, as I am.”

“If you stay as you are, a fugitive on the run, they’ll kill you,” Tony says, bluntly, desperately, because _she has to understand_ , “Before, as an Avenger, you were a danger they could live with. You were—they could live with you being alive, because they thought—. They can’t, now, not with the team broken like this.”

“And who’s fault is that?” she says, steely, even though her face has gone white, her arms crossed, defensive. “You’re the one who broke us, Stark. If you had just let Cap go, we—we could have fixed it before it got to this.”

“I couldn’t let C-Cap go,” it’s an honest struggle to get the words out level, his hand going numb around the phone from the tightness of his grip, his heart thudding beneath a rim of bone still knitting itself back together, “They would have sent military, if we hadn’t gone, and how many of those men do you think would have been left standing?”

“An excuse for everything, as usual,” Maximoff quips, but her voice is so bitter, so filled with scorn, that Tony has to look away, throat working soundlessly, “What’s the line for Siberia, then?”

Everything in him goes cold and still, his heartbeat cracking against his chest like the dull thud of metal. “ _What_.”

“He told us what you did, you know,” her voice, behind him, “that you tried to kill him.”

“ _He killed my parents_ ,” Tony snarls, everything in his body sparking back with a red flush of heat, eyes snapping up to bore into hers.

She stares right back, solid, unwavering. “ _Hydra_ killed your parents.”

He laughs, a sharp bark of a thing that tears out of his chest with a vengeful sort of hurt, and leans forward, just a fraction, and when he speaks his voice has an ugly lilt to it, a patronizing type of scorn it only gets when he deliberately crosses a line, “I don’t remember you making that kind of distinction when one of my weapons killed your parents.”

For a moment, he almost swears that she glows red, so many tendrils and sparks flow from her hands, before she reigns them back. “ _Don’t_.”

“Seriously, I can’t believe you, of all people, are telling me I should have taken the high road, considering that when I killed your parents, you joined a Nazi organization and let them experiment on you for kicks,” he says, conversationally, watching her muscles wind tighter and tighter with every word, watching as her fingers spark red, her eyes start glowing molten crimson, taking it all in with a detached sort of calm, and he never understands it, never, how people forget how he is, what kinds of things he does when people back him into corners, “And when _they_ failed to get you your revenge, you dipped into my mind and showed me exactly how my friends would die and why it would be my fault, until I created a psychotic AI robot whose killing and maiming you were _fine with_ as long as it brought me down, too—until you realized it was crazier than I was, at least—”

He's knocked back across his workshop before he can get another word out, back hitting metal before he goes tumbling head over heels, and by the time he gets his bearings she’s standing in front of him with one hand out, red tendrils binding his wrists.

“That’s different,” she hisses out, red eyes wide, fingers splayed open, chest heaving, “I don’t—you don’t understand, you have no idea what it’s _like_ —”

“What what is like?” he interrupts, and he knows, he knows he should just stop, (she’s just a young girl, and he shouldn’t, should just let her rage against him like he deserves, but he’s so angry, God, he is so angry, and he can’t, he can’t, _he can’t_ ), “Losing my parents? Being betrayed by one of the only things, only people you trusted to keep you safe?” He swallows, tries to breathe over the sharp spike of his limping heart, “Losing your oldest friend?”

Her hands are shaking again, and she’s looking down at him with eyes that are still red, but tear-bright, “I am _nothing_ like you. I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

He stops struggling, the fire in his blood going out, somehow, with those words, suddenly replaced by the familiar swamping tiredness, the normal press of guilt, with new added weight, curling in his chest. “Neither did I.”

She stares at him, and then, with a low cry, spins away, crumpling to her knees. The red around his wrists disappear, and by the time he eases up to a sitting position, she has her head in her hands.

She looks at him, when he’s finally sitting upright, and her eyes are bright but there are no tears falling on her cheeks, and she shakes her head, once, a plea. “I just wanted everyone to be _safe_.”

He rests his arms carefully on his knees and looks at her, for a moment dropping every shield, every defense he has at his disposal.

“You can read my mind,” he tells her, “So you know that’s all I ever wanted to do.”

She sighs, taking in a slow, deep breath. Minutes pass in downy, weighted silence, until she says, softly, “I don’t know where this leaves us. With the UN. I still won’t be locked away.”

Tony’s hands slip back into his pockets, habit, and as his fingers brush against cool metal on the left, and right, his eyebrows shoot up.

“Actually,” he says, slowly, testing the waters, “I think I have an idea that just might help with that.”

She looks at him, suspicious, and he gives her a bright, cheerful Stark grin, and winks. “Read my mind, sweetheart.”

He assumes she does, because a minute later, she starts smiling.

* * *

 

He waits until Wanda leaves, before he pulls the phones out of his pocket. He stares at the black phone for a minute, before he sets it down and picks up the slim, silver Starkphone.

A moment later the text is sent:

Tony: _Remember that favor you owe me? Cashing in._

He spends a minute in silence, absent-mindedly designing circuity in his head before he hears three sharp pings:

Asshole Farmboy: _ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS_

Asshole Farmboy: _It’s barely been six months, dick_

Asshole Farmboy: _When do you need me?_

The smile tugging at his mouth is warm and insistent as he sends back:

Tony: _By Tuesday_

Tony: _No worries I just need you to help piss off Ross and like half the UN_

Tony: _Btw how many bedrooms does your Americana fantasy house have?_

* * *

 

“Stop worrying,” he says, fighting his own urge to fidget by slipping his hands into his suit pockets, where he can feel the phone’s weight resting solid against him.

“I’m not worrying,” Wanda assures him, but her teeth keep catching at her lip.

They’re standing in front of a shocked and incoherent subcommittee, jolted into panicked shouting and demands by the appearance of Wanda at Tony’s side when he’d strolled in, looking cool and unconcerned. Vision, standing on Wanda’s other side and having already blasted a line across them in warming when someone had called for arrest, is seemingly content to stay out of the conversation and stare at Wanda like she’s the sun.

“Seriously, stop it, you’re gonna give me hives,” Tony says, when she’s biting her lip again. “I have a plan, remember?”

“Yes, because that always goes so well,” she says, bright with false cheer.

“Mouthy,” he says, and the frisson of warmth that blooms in his chest when she gives him a tentative smile widens when the doors open again, and he sees Clint Barton step into the room, his quiver on his shoulder, a sight that actually hushes the committee into silence. “Awesome, now we can get this over with.”

Three and a half hours of heated arguing later and the committee finally, grudgingly votes to accept Tony’s proposal:

That one Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch, be pardoned for her part in what the media had dubbed the Civil War, provided that she makes reparations to Nigeria (Ross had turned an interesting shade of purple when, at this point as they were signing the paperwork, Tony had reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and silently handed Wanda a blank check), that a suitable guardian be found “for her protection” (the signature on the document reads “combat-trained, mind-control resistant expert marksman Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye”), and that something could be found to “negate the destructive tendencies” of her abilities (Wanda had actually presented Tony’s invention to the committee instead of Tony, two slim bronze cuffs he had dubbed the Witch’s Focus, explaining how they allowed her better fine-motor control over her telekinetic abilities so that what happened in Africa would never happen again).

The committee had attempted to insist on her signing the Accords right then and there, but Tony had politely explained why that was impossible, as the documents were still being re-written, sorry, you know lawyers, what can you do.

“Well,” Clint says, finally, after the committee has filed out of the room and Ross has left at last, after one last poisonous glare at Tony. “Guess I have another fucking kid, now. Good thing you’re already past the awkward teenager phase, huh?”

Wanda smiles at Clint, sunny and brilliant. “Are you sure you’re past the teenager phase?”

“I could give you a curfew, you know.”

Wanda laughs, and as the four of them leave, Tony takes in a deep breath and smiles, his hand uncurling from the black phone.

* * *

 

Sometimes, when he’s trembling with exhaustion, when his heart is thundering against his ribs, he still has Friday bring up the numbers.

But now, sometimes, he has her bring up video, lets the smooth chatter of Wanda and the Barton family wash over him, another, quieter reminder of why, why he fights so hard to fix what he’s trying to fix.

Sometimes, he and Wanda still argue, still trying to bridge the gap, but even after those times, when he shuts down the video, he finds that it’s easier for him to crawl into bed, just to try, for once, to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People are starting to murmur about how, maybe, arresting Tony isn't the worst of ideas—like the society darlings he’s passing now, huddled in small clusters and shooting him narrowed glances and muttering about how if Tony Stark is really on the right side of the law, then why is he trying to pardon all of his law-breaking, treasonous super-powered friends?

It takes him months to put the suit back on—it takes months before he even _can_ put the suit back on, medically speaking, his cuts and bruises and broken bones all protesting, the twisted, scarred ruin of his chest declaring an emphatic nope, no, fuck that, not happening darling, so he spends the time building, instead.

He tries to fix the old one, first, in a rare burst of—he doesn’t know, he just couldn’t stand to look at the unnatural bend of the metal, the snapped wires, the black tarnish, but he gets to the breastplate, to the empty circle surrounded by jagged cracks, and—

Well, he rips it apart instead (after he comes back to himself, shivering and shaking on the floor with Friday blaring alarms, after it takes him three tries to bring his hand down from his heart, his breath rattling under the dull thud of metal still ringing in his ears) puts the wreckage out of his mind and starts anew.

He loses himself in it, for a while, in the puzzle of design, the careful innovation of circuitry and the bright clang of hot metal, and when he’s done the new version is sleek and trim, winking red and gold in the light, and he lets himself grin.

If his hands shake when he places the core reactor onto its piece, well, no one’s around to notice but Friday.

He steps into the suit for the first time the following week, watches the metal climb up his legs, his arms, and as the helmet clicks into place around him, HUD flaring to life, he breathes out, serene, his heart slow and steady with relief.

Then he looks down, sees the glow of the reactor against the metal and jerks, dragging in a labored mouth of air under a frantic heart, haywire beneath impact, under the sound of shattering—

“Off,” he gasps, fighting, clawing with the pieces as he stumbles back, away, “Get it off, _off_ , _Jarvis,_ I need it off—”

He tries again, nearly throws up all over himself before the faceplate slides open, his panting drowning out Friday’s worried voice. Tries again, and again, and again, because he is Tony _Goddamned_ Stark and if there’s one thing he knows how to _fucking_ build it’s his armor, and they won’t have this too, they will _not_.

By the sixth try, he can finally breathe.

By the eighth, he can fly.

* * *

 

It’s early morning, according to Friday, and there’s errant bits of metal sticking to his skin and oil streaking his chest when Natasha comes padding in, delicately balancing three cups between her slender fingers.

She presses the first one into his hands and he grunts, swigs back the coffee nearly in one shot with practiced ease, the bitter flavor shivering on his tongue, and manages to growl out something closer to human speech when she slides a second cup, this one steaming hot, into his hands and curls up on the chair behind him with her hands wrapped around her own mug (tea, something subtle and soothingly fragrant), resting her back on his carefully, the line of her spine a comfortable press between his shoulders.

There’s silence in the workshop, for a long while—well, silence as Tony does it, anyway, with the whirr and click of machinery and the hum of computers, Friday having turned the music down to something low and murmuring, but he’s not talking, so hey, he thinks it counts.

“So,” Natasha says, finally. “Where do we go from here?”

Oh, isn’t that just the million-dollar question.

The problem is—well, there’s a storm of problems, really, but two major ones that he really needs to focus on—first off, the Final Three are the big guns, two of whom opposed the Accords from the start and who actively chose to go AWOL, which makes talking around furious UN, military, and international officials _vastly_ difficult.

Also, second major problem? Ross is pissed. Pissed enough to order shoot on sight, apprehend at all costs black-ops missions whenever the military gets a whisper of Captain America.

Pissed enough to tell Tony that if the man found out he had any contact with Captain America at all, he would have Tony arrested for treason—the penalty for which, he took pains to remind Tony, while he was trying not to wrap his hands around the phone burning a _hole_ in his pocket, is death.

Natasha’s shoulder nudges his, gently, and right, he’s supposed to answer her out loud.

Tony hmms, taking a sip of coffee and blowing up the schematics he’s working with the other hand so he can look closer, the blue whooshing over Natasha’s head, before he sighs and grumbles, “I’m working on it.”

Natasha makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a snort. “No, please, don’t overwhelm me with the details,” she says, and Tony bites off a laugh, clunks his head against hers, lightly, with a grumble that he has to work not to turn into a whine.

“Gimme a break, alright?” he mumbles, licking coffee off his lips. “It’s not as easy as making a few calls this time. The political shit involved— I am literally swimming in bullshit paperwork; honestly, if I see another government acronym today I swear to fuck, _things_ will be done.”

Natasha snorts, taking a decisive sip of tea. “There’s a lot to consider here,” she agrees, in her serene way, tapping on the blue above her, the gesture making the word—REDWING—flare bright in the muted light of the workshop. “Starting with Sam is a good choice. But you know he won’t come back without Steve.”

“I know.”

“And Steve isn’t coming without—”

“ _I know_ , Natasha, Christ.”

It comes out harsher than he’d like it, his heart thumping harder against his chest, enough to shock the still-sore bits (because he can’t think about that one, he can’t, not when he keeps seeing his mother’s eyes, sightless but still, somehow, terrified and so _shocked_ —he has to, somehow, because the world needs them, but he just, he _can’t_ ) and his hand jerks up to tap, tap, tap, automatic, defensive.

She butts his shoulder, just hard enough to make the point, to send his hand floating back to grip his coffee cup, before she continues, “Sam’s a veteran. Your people should be able to do something with his story. That should help.”

Tony grunts, because it is a story almost tailor-made for the media (war veteran, dedicated to helping his fellow man, not to mention that Sam Wilson, for all the little Tony actually knows about him, is just one of those genuinely _good_ men, the kind of person he always kept in mind back when he still made weapons; the kind of person he now knows his weapons killed in the _thousands_ ) but it’s not going to be enough, not when Ross and the UN won’t be able to forget how close he’s connected to Captain America—not when they can take that story, and without too much effort add the word _traitor_.

He leans his head against Natasha’s again, brief, and closes his eyes for one soft, blessed moment.

“Fuck,” he says mournfully, decisive and with feeling.

Natasha sips at her tea languidly, kitten-warm on his back. “Yeah,” she agrees, dry. “That about sums it up.”

* * *

 

The crowd murmurs as he slips past, clad with effortless grace in in tailored black silk, sliding their eyes over him and _whispering_.

He eases the death grip he has on the glass in his hand when his knuckles start to burn, grinds his teeth beneath the veneer of his patented “fuck with me, I dare you,” society smile, and ignores them, striding towards the front of the room where he can see the bright flash of Natasha’s hair.

It’s not the first charity banquet he’s attended since the Civil War, and it won’t be the last—but it _is_ the first one he’s attended since he began publicly calling for the pardon of one Sam Wilson, which makes a fair bit of difference as it’s now an open secret, in the right circles, that Ross is after Tony’s head.

He’d started with Natasha’s suggestion, giving all of Wilson’s information to a determined Sachiko, knowing full well as he does it that he’s opening the floodgates. Ross hit him with the first search, for the Avengers Facility, only a week into Sachiko’s efforts, an action approved (and thus backed) by the UN since Ross cited concerns that Tony Stark’s strangely prolific arguments on behalf of the fugitive Avengers must mean he’s still in contact with, if not actively collaborating with, one or more of them.

The scope of the fight in Siberia is still unknown by most—even Rhodey and Pepper haven’t been able to pry all the details out of him (and he suspects the UN representatives wouldn’t be quite as quick to give Ross his head if they knew exactly why he’d returned with more broken bones and bruises than when he’d left) but he’s unwilling to open those particular doors, so he’d sat back with Nathan at his side, glowering, let them rip through the rooms, through his lab and his servers, hands casually slipped into his pockets where he has a death grip on the small black phone.

He’d watched them shake apart his desk—yeah, because a futurist is going to keep all his important documents on paper, honestly, Ross, how are you in command of military personnel—clenched his teeth as they swept over his workbenches, and nearly bit his tongue in half to keep from shouting as Ross’s tech monkeys clumsily fumbled their way through his files.

It’s only when they’d asked to see the suits that he’d refused, jerked his head at Nathan and had his lawyer flawlessly argue his way around the search’s terms, because Ross is not getting his hands on those, that is just not fucking happening, okay, Thunderbird, deal.

That first time, Ross leaves with a big, heaping pile of nothing—or so Tony thought before he returned two weeks later for the next strip down, this one including all of Tony’s additional properties (though excluding Stark Industries, which Ross targets with the third goddamn search) which he rips apart with equal glee.

Tony caught onto the game pretty quickly, after that.

While it’s true that with things so unsettled Tony can’t actively go after Ross—he has to appear still united with the UN, for all intents and purposes—Ross is in an equal bind, because for all of the power he now thinks that he wields, Ross still can’t afford to lose Iron Man with War Machine still out and only Black Widow and Vision active on the Avengers roster.  Which means he needs actual concrete evidence to put Tony in cuffs for treason, and if that evidence is obtained with him casually, and legally, searching Tony’s houses, businesses, and assorted properties in front of witnesses and cameras and asshats with Twitter access? Icing on the fucking cake.

It’s a good move, considering hating Tony Stark is as much a national pastime as loving Tony Stark. Considering that all Ross has to do if he wants to throw Tony’s ass in prison for life (if he’s lucky—executing him, if he’s not) is find the smallest, most miniscule shred of said evidence, it’s a _damn_ good move.

But hey, he's not in prison yet, and doesn't plan on ever attending, no thank you, declined. 

But people are starting to murmur about how, _maybe_ , arresting Tony isn't the worst of ideas—like the society darlings he’s passing now, huddled in small clusters and shooting him narrowed glances and muttering about how if Tony Stark is really on the right side of the law, then why is he trying to pardon all of his law-breaking, treasonous super-powered friends?

Or this group, CEOs in the corner, all wearing cheaper, less glamorous versions of the suit he’s wearing, talking in low bursts about how it was way too easy for Stark's friends to escape him, a little too convenient that Captain America managed to disappear so fast, still can't be found now--and coincidentally, someone could only manage to hide this long with the help of some serious tech. 

And this gaggle of old money there, all of them are murmuring about the fluctuation in Stark Industries stock, something the board is throwing an epic tantrum about—the goddamn children—because even though Tony is lucky enough to have Pepper Potts as his CEO (he and Pepper may have broken up, but she’s still Pepper—which means—however little he deserves her—people who want to fuck with Tony have to make it past her first) and Pepper Potts inspires a healthy amount of terror in the business world _for a reason_ , her iron hand and Tony's smooth charm aren't quite enough to mend the damage, not this time.

"Mr. Stark?"

He jolts back to the present, blinking, to see King T'Challa of Wakanda in front of him, holding out a hand with a polite smile.

“Mr. Stark,” the young king says again, his eyes on Tony's calm, considering, his smile small but not unkind. “I have been waiting for you. I believe you and I have quite a few things to discuss.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The projector is playing press reels of his parents, of his mother, over and over, and his other hand is white-knuckled on the curved metal edge of something he refuses to look at too closely.

 

Sparks, ozone, and heat. His earliest memories are of metal, shine and twist and turn, scarred hands backlit by the bright orange flare of fire.

He knows the give of steel almost better than skin (Pepper used to brush at her mouth and laugh when she kissed him, sometimes, her fingers clinging to the sharp bits of silver stuck on his arms, in his hair—“it doesn’t want to let you go, Tony,” she used to say—), knows every strike and stretch it had to take to become a skyscraper, a tablet, a watch, a missile. An arc reactor.

He knew iron, intimate, long before it burrowed in next to his heart.

* * *

 

Tony is not sure why everyone always seems shocked that him and T’Challa know each other. Have known each other for a few years now—has to be half a decade at least, shit—ever since T’Chaka started bringing his sharp-eyed young son with him on affairs of state.

(This is literally a matter of public record, and _logic_ —he owns a multi-billion tech and former weapons company and his fa—his company has a history with vibranium; like he wouldn’t know the king of Wakanda?)

He _likes_ T’Challa, works with the king fairly well when their paths cross, but. Well.

Things are slightly complicated between them in the present moment, what with T’Challa harboring the rest of the fugitive Avengers, Tony knowing it, T’Challa _knowing_ that Tony knows it, and Tony knowing that T’Challa knows that Tony knows it.

He fucking hates politics.

“Not a great time for me,” Tony says, blithe, then flicks his eyes at the king when the camera flash goes off (he has to walk the line, can’t be too polite to the boy in case Ross is the one watching, the whereabouts of certain fugitives being an open secret; Rog—he is _not_ subtle —can’t be too cruel, for the sake of other eyes) “We can set up a meeting; I think I’m free on the 14 th in five years. Have your people call my people.”

Natasha tilts her head, slides her hand up T’Challa’s arm in a quick, dismissive gesture, and turns to whisper in his ear. Tony’s lip-reading isn’t the best (to Romanoff’s eternal despair, but at least he no longer sounds like “some spoiled Kievan brat” in Russian, see, progress) but he can make out, _headquarters, night, one hour_.

The corner of T’Challa’s mouth twitches into something more genuine.

“Another time, then, Mr. Stark.” The king extends a hand to Natasha, gives Tony a regal nod, and slips casually into the crowd, already smiling at one of the ambassadors.

Natasha slips a hand of her own over Tony’s elbow, throwing her own smile like a knife, perfectly balanced, at a diplomat starting towards them. “So,” she says. “We’re entertaining. Rhodes will be thrilled.”

“Oh, ecstatic,” Tony agrees, dropping his glass onto a serving tray. “And why wouldn’t he be? I’m bringing home dinner and a show.”

She raises a brow as the tray whirls by, at the cups of green and pink _something_ filling its surface. “Yeah, I might skip dinner.”

He wrinkles his nose. “We’re totally stopping for pizza on the way home.”

“Good.” She tilts her head, tossing back one red curl. “You sure you’re ready for this?”

“No.” Tony whirls them onto the dance floor, hands settling on Natasha’s back, over the press of her skin, the whisper-silk of her dress, and something…else. “Which makes it kind of a good thing your dress is laced with…garroting wire, seriously? That is so hot.”

“You should know, you made the dress,” she says, dry, but her lips are curled in a smile again gone knife-sharp and this Tony knows, metal and heat, as she meets his eyes when they turn on the floor, one hand resting lightly on his neck.

* * *

 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Rhodey says flatly, forty-five minutes later, as Natasha drapes herself over one of the white couches and Tony flips open one of the pizza boxes.

“Hey now, honeybear, he’s the one who said he wanted to talk to me,” Tony points out. “I know he’s a king but don’t you worry; you know I still like you best.”

“I was talking about the fact that you ordered three pizzas, and all of them have anchovies on them. _All_ of them, you dick.”

Tony grins, taking the biggest, noisiest bite of anchovy laden pizza that he can, just to see Rhodey gag a little—plus, salty brine and savory tomato-y sauce and cheese, just, _mmm_.

“There’s a calzone for you hidden in the microwave,” Natasha says, her own pizza balanced delicately in front of her mouth, because some people in his life have taste.

“Thank God,” Rhodey mutters, lifting himself carefully off the chair. Tony twitches, and Natasha shifts, so delicate, just an arch of the throat so the light catches at the diamonds around her neck.

“The repulsor technology in the braces seems to balance the weight,” she murmurs as Rhodey turns into the kitchen, instead _of relax, he’s fine, you have to let him stand on his own_.

“Could be better if he would just let me smooth out the joints,” Tony mutters back, mulish, and sinks onto the arm of a chair, instead of _he’s in pain, and I can **help**_.

Natasha’s hand falls lightly on his knee.

“It sounds like I am interrupting,” the silky comment slides into the room a moment before T’Challa does, dressed not in the sharp tailoring he normally favors but as the Black Panther, the cat-eared mask hanging loose on his neck. “Shall I come back at another time?”

Tony raises a brow, lifting the hand not folding his pizza in the king’s direction. “After you got all dressed up just for us?”

“I thought it best to come as an…ally, let us say,” the young king strides forward, sitting on the couch opposite Natasha with that fluid ease he has, in the catsuit (ha!) as out.

“Let’s,” Tony agrees, locking eyes with Rhodey as he makes his way back, lifts himself up to drop next to Natasha so Rhodey can settle into the chair.

T’Challa’s eyes are sharp, flicking between the three of them, and he steeps his fingers in his lap. They’re bare of the gloves he normally wears, and Tony notes absently what a shame that is, rare as it always is to study some new vibranium creation—and idly twists the ring wrapped around his finger.

 “You and my father,” the king says, a little abrupt, and he blinks, refocuses on T’Challa’s face. “You knew each other quite well, I think, even before he decided I was old enough to handle some matters of the crown. Enough to know he was not a…bloody man. Violence was not in his nature the way it is in mine.” T’Challa looks up. “Or in your own.”

“Hey—” Rhodey leans forward in his chair, eyes dark.

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Tony says quickly. He takes another bite and rests the slice on the plate nearest. “But I’m a little thrown here, Your Highness.”

“My father believed in the Accords, Mr. Stark. I still believe in the Accords,” the king says.

“I know,” Tony says, and dammit, he’s _still_ confused, because T’Challa has been at every single Accords meeting in person, without fail, sometimes on the side of Tony’s amendments and sometimes not, but always, always honest.

“I wanted to remind you, before I said what I have come to say,” T’Challa’s voice is decisive and Tony’s mouth twitches but he doesn’t get to speak before T’Challa actually says the words.

“I cannot keep them there much longer.”

Tony is silent, and for some godfors _aken_ reason T’Challa seems to take that as permission to continue.

“I don’t need you to take them all,” the Black Panther leans forward, his voice hitting an earnest note. “Just Barn—“

“Not happening,” Tony says, without even thinking about it, _because he fucking_ \--no. No, no, _no_.

“Mr. Stark—Tony,” the king corrects, serious and determined, and Jesus, had Tony ever been this _young_ before? “Tony,” T’Challa says again. “You more than anyone knows how persistent the General can be. I am—my country is—mourning. Unstable. If the General comes, we can fight. We can probably even win. But it will mean war.”

“ _Tough_ ,” Tony _snarls_. “You made that choice when you took—when you let them in, Kitty-cat. _You_ did, and you want to take it back now that the consequences are coming? It doesn’t _work_ like that—and have you even asked them what they think about this?”

“Tones,” Rhodey says quietly, but Tony sees the way T’Challa’s eyes slide from his face towards his hands and _laughs_ , because _of course_.

 “Let me guess,” Tony says, before the king can say another word, and he won’t give into the temptation of looking down to see if his hands are shaking. “They’re not going anywhere, and even if they were they wouldn’t need my help anyway, because I’m the one who always makes the wrong choices, right? I’m the one who starts all the fires.”

“Tony.”

He’s breathing hard, abruptly on his feet, and he doesn’t know who spoke but he can’t look to find out, can’t even relax his hands from the fists they’ve curled into, so tight the knuckles are white, nails cutting into his palms.

“I was there,” T’Challa is on his feet too, steely-eyed and steady-handed, not backing down. “Did you know? I was there in Siberia, when Zemo showed—”

“So why _would you bring him here_?” Tony roars, abruptly, blindingly, righteously _furious_. There’s a ringing in his ears, white creeping alone the edges of the room, his heart beating, beating, beating in his chest. “You saw, you _saw_. The second he gets under my roof, I’m going to choke the life right out of him. Like he did to _my mother_.”

“Tony.” Natasha’s voice is so soft it gets lost in the pounding of his heart, in the pressure of Rhodey’s hands on his shoulders.

“No, you won’t,” T’Challa’s eyes are on him, steady, not giving him time to breath. “You won’t. I was there. I saw. And if you wanted to, you could have killed him right there, but you didn’t. That’s how I knew Barnes a man worth saving. That you were the kind of man who saves.”

“So you helped him and his criminal bestie to hide away in your tech fortress of a country and left me broken in Siberian ice,” Tony snaps, and his shoulders are shaking so hard against Rhodey’s hands Rhodey is shaking too. “You didn’t help me then, why should I help you now? Why should I help any of you?”

T’Challa hesitates.

“Because you are the only one I trust that can.”

Silence.

“I’ll think about it,” Tony bites out. Then he turns, and leaves.

* * *

 

Natasha finds him hours later, in front of the film projector in his workshop with one hand curled in a vice around the neck of an unopened 75-year old Dalmore.

The projector is playing press reels of his parents, of his _mother_ , over and over, and his other hand is white-knuckled on the curved metal edge of something he refuses to look at too closely.

She settles without a sound on the arm of his chair. She’s still in her evening dress, delicate silk pooling onto the floor, folding over the killing wire no one but Tony sees.

“T’Challa left. He said he’s giving us some time, but he’ll be back next month for the Accords negotiations,” she says, timing it so her voice hits as the film loops again, the starting image a flash of his mother’s face and society smile (oh, had he learned from the best). “Rhodey punched him.”

Natasha pauses. “So did I,” she admits.

Tony’s breath hitches. His fingers let go of metal, one by one, and curl around silk folds, wire pressing soft into his palm.

She lets the silence sit for just a beat. “I don’t know your endgame for all this, not yet,” she murmurs, and Tony would smile, if he could in this moment, over how sure she sounds. “But I’m pretty sure keeping T’Challa on the Avengers roster is important for it. So we came up with an alternative.”

The film cuts, again, and Natasha keeps her voice to rhythm of jazz now soft in the speakers.  “Clint’s farm is still off the book and with your upgrades—well, it might actually be easier to target a small country. And least they would be tied up with politics. No one would have any reason to suspect, and if they do, someone would be able to get there faster than a few other locations.”

Tony keeps his eyes on grainy, spinning dancers, for a long second, before he nods. “Do it,” he makes himself rasp. “Do it.”

Natasha nods. They don’t speak again, but she stays, and keeps guard as for once, Tony lets himself gets swept up watching ghosts.

* * *

 

It doesn’t slip out of his mind, not exactly, but Tony gets busy.

There’s upgrades to SI, dodging Ross at event after event, TV interviews, that whole situation in Queens (which is mostly fun, and very briefly terrifying), press briefings, press conferences, so Tony doesn’t quite understand why T’Challa keeps _looking_ at him as the table goes over the latest Accords proposal until he remembers what day it is.

Tony is amicable, charming, focused throughout the rest of the meeting, even with his heart vibrating against his ribs hard enough to make him dizzy, even as he swears he keeps hearing something crunch ( _metal against metal against bone_ ), and keeps the peace enough that they actually close the day, wonder of wonders, productively.

T’Challa shakes his hand as they’re all leaving, whispers a soft ‘thank you,’ and Tony is even sincere when he nods (he knows all about being young, with the weight of a kingdom suddenly on your chest, pulled in seven directions all at once and having to protect all of it, everything, so he can pay it forward, at least, can take some of the weight no one ever took from him) but leaves quickly.

He doesn’t talk about it with Rhodey or Nat, the conversation steady on Ross, the Accords, defense, but the manifestos of materials to Barton’s farm are a little longer, Natasha’s phone call with Clint last later, and his project list has a few more items.

He makes it three months.

He’s in the middle of re-calibrating one of the projects on his desk (a new-old beauty that got somewhat buried under recent events), intent on the delicate circuitry in the headset, when Natasha sets on the chair next to him and asks why the jet is fueling up in the hanger.

He looks at her with a small, careful smile. “I felt like a trip—hope you’re a light packer, we’re wheels up in two hours. Go help Rhodey out, will you, he’s terrible at picking outfits when it’s not uniforms. It’s like he still thinks everything has to _match,_ poor doe.”

The trip is cut in half of what it usually would be, because Tony is amazing, and it’s not long before he’s knocking on a familiar door, sunglasses pushed onto his head.

“Aw, son of a bitch,” Clint says, as he swings it open.

“No time to waste on small talk, sugarplum,” Tony says. “We’re waking him up.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just really needed this, okay, because Civil War emotionally ruined me.


End file.
